(11 January 1910 – 20 November 1984) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

newspaper editor and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

with the Norwegian Labour Party. He served as the 26th

prime minister of Norway The prime minister of Norway ( no, statsminister, which directly translates to "minister of state") is the head of government and chief executive of Norway. The prime minister and Cabinet (consisting of all the most senior government department ...

from 1971 to 1972 and again from 1973 to 1976. He was president of the Nordic Council in 1978.

Background

Bratteli was born on the island of

Nøtterøy Nøtterøy is an island and a former municipality in the present-day municipality of Færder in Vestfold and Telemark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality was the village of Borgheim. The parish of ''Nøtterø'' was esta ...

Færder Færder is a municipality in Vestfold in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Borgheim. The municipality was established in 2018 by the unification of the former municipalities of ...

Vestfold Vestfold is a traditional region, a former county and a current electoral district in Eastern Norway. In 2020 the county became part of the much larger county of Vestfold og Telemark. Located on the western shore of the Oslofjord, it bordered t ...

, Norway. His parents were Terje Hansen Bratteli (1879–1967) and Martha Barmen (1881–1937). He attended school locally, having many jobs including: work in fishing, as a coal miner and on a building site. Over a 9- to 10-month period, Bratteli travelled with whalers to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

, where he worked in a guano factory at

South Georgia Island South Georgia ( es, Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east� ...

. He was a student at the socialist school at

Malmøya Malmøya is an island south of Oslo Central Station. Oslo, the capital of Norway. The island is mostly known for its large quantities of fossils from the Cambro-Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 millio ...

in 1933.

Oscar Torp Oscar Fredrik Torp (, 8 June 1893 – 1 May 1958) was a Norwegian politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. He was party leader from 1923 to 1945, and mayor of Oslo in 1935 and 1936. In 1935 he became the acting minister of Defence in the governm ...

, chairman of the Norwegian Labour Party, asked him to become editor of ''Folkets Frihet'' in Kirkenes and later editor of '' Arbeiderungdommen'' which was published by the

Socialist Youth League of Norway Socialist Youth League of Norway (in Norwegian: ''Norges sosialistiske ungdomsforbund''), initially founded as the Social Democratic Youth League of Norway (''Norges sosialdemokratiske ungdomsforbund''), was the youth wing of the Social Democratic ...

. For a period during 1940, he also served as Secretary of the Norwegian Labour Party. Following the Nazi invasion of Norway, the daily newspaper ''Arbeiderbladet'' was closed down during 1940 by Nazi officials. Bratteli subsequently participated in the

Norwegian resistance movement The Norwegian resistance (Norwegian: ''Motstandsbevegelsen'') to the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany began after Operation Weserübung in 1940 and ended in 1945. It took several forms: *Asserting the legitimacy of the exiled governmen ...

. He was arrested by agents of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in 1942, and was a

Nacht und Nebel ''Nacht und Nebel'' (German: ), meaning Night and Fog, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to ...

prisoner of various German

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

s; including Natzweiler-Struthof, from 1943 to 1945. He was also imprisoned in the

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoner ...

, north of Berlin. He was liberated from

Vaihingen an der Enz concentration camp Vaihingen an der Enz (officially named Wiesengrund) concentration camp, near the city of Vaihingen an der Enz in the Neckar region of Germany, was a slave labor camp for armament manufacturing built by the Todt organization. In the end phase of th ...

on 5 April 1945, by the Swedish Red Cross

White Buses White Buses was a Swedish humanitarian operation with the objective of freeing Scandinavians in German concentration camps in Nazi Germany during the final stages of World War II. Although the White Buses operation was envisioned to rescue Scan ...

along with fifteen other Norwegians who had survived.

Political career

After the liberation of Norway in 1945, Bratteli was appointed as Secretary of the Labour Party. He became chairman of the Workers' Youth League, vice chairman of the party, served on the newly formed ''defence commission'', and in 1965; was made Chairman of the Labour Party. Bratteli was elected to the

Norwegian Parliament The Storting ( no, Stortinget ) (lit. the Great Thing) is the supreme legislature of Norway, established in 1814 by the Constitution of Norway. It is located in Oslo. The unicameral parliament has 169 members and is elected every four years bas ...

from Oslo in 1950, and was re-elected on seven occasions. He was appointed as

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

's cabinet, and from 1956 to 1960 in the third cabinet of

Einar Gerhardsen Einar Henry Gerhardsen (; 10 May 1897 – 19 September 1987) was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party of Norway. He was the 22nd prime minister of Norway for three periods, 1945–1951, 1955–1963 and 1963–1965. With totally 17 years in ...

. From 1960 to 1963, during Gerhardsen's third period as Prime Minister, he was Minister of Transport and Communications. He was also acting Minister of Finance from January–February 1962. In September 1963, when Gerhardsen's fourth cabinet was formed, Bratteli was again made Minister of Transport and Communications, a post he held until 1964. The centre-right cabinet of Borten held office from 1965 to 1971, but when it collapsed, Bratteli became

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

. In social policy, Bratteli's premiership saw the passage of a law in June 1972 that lowered the pension age to 67. Central to his political career was the question of Norway's membership of the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

. Following the close rejection of membership in the 1972 referendum, his cabinet resigned. However, the successor

cabinet Korvald Korvald's Cabinet governed Norway between 18 October 1972 and 16 October 1973. The centre cabinet was led by Lars Korvald as Prime Minister and consisted of the Christian Democratic Party __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political p ...

only lasted one year, and the second cabinet Bratteli was formed following the

1973 Norwegian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Norway on 9 and 10 September 1973.Dieter Nohlen & Philip Stöver (2010) ''Elections in Europe: A data handbook'', p1438 The Labour Party remained the largest party, winning 62 of the 155 seats in the Storting. ...

. Bratteli resigned as prime minister in January 1976 on the grounds of ill health. He was succeeded by fellow Labour member

Odvar Nordli Odvar Nordli (3 November 1927 – 9 January 2018) was a Norwegian politician from the Labour Party. He was the 28th prime minister of Norway from 1976 to 1981 during the Cold War. Before serving as Prime Minister, Nordli served as the minister ...

Personal life

Trygve Bratteli was married to Randi Helene Larssen (1924–2002). They had three children: two daughters, Tone and Marianne, and one son, professor Ola Bratteli (1946–2015). Bratteli's memoirs of his experiences in Nazi concentration camps was published in 1980. He died in 1984 and was buried at

Vestre gravlund Vestre Gravlund is a cemetery in the Frogner borough of Oslo, Norway. It is located next to the Borgen metro station. At , it is the largest cemetery in Norway. It was inaugurated in September 1902 and also contains a crematorium (''Vestre kr ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

. Trygve Bratteli was a member of Friends of Israel within the Norwegian Labour Movement (''Venner av Israel i Norsk Arbeiderbevegelse'') which planted a forest to his memory in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

References

Other sources

*Anderson, Gidske (1984) ''Trygve Bratteli'' (Oslo: Gyldendal)

Notes

*Thirteen Norwegians died at Vaihingen and were buried in a mass grave, according to:

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bratteli, Trygve 1910 births 1984 deaths People from Vestfold Norwegian newspaper editors Members of the Storting Ministers of Finance of Norway Prime Ministers of Norway Night and Fog program Norwegian people of World War II Politicians from Oslo Norwegian autobiographers Norwegian World War II memoirists Vaihingen an der Enz concentration camp survivors Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp survivors Ministers of Transport and Communications of Norway Leaders of the Labour Party (Norway) 20th-century Norwegian politicians 20th-century Norwegian writers